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The Israeli version was rejected by witnesses and Palestinian victims who said that they had come under direct fire from heavy machine-guns mounted on Israeli tanks in the town of Beit Hanoun, in northern Gaza.

One of the women suffered such severe facial injuries that medical authorities had struggled to identify her.

"Look at my left foot," shrieked another, Asma Hamed, 23, from a bed at the Alawda Hospital.

"I was shot from a tank only a 100 metres away and the bullet broke the bones in my foot."

The Israeli army claimed for several hours that a news agency had video footage of a Palestinian gunman using women's dress to evade capture. This claim was later withdrawn.

However, Mrs Hamed said that she had seen some women carrying extra female clothes intended to allow the gunmen to evade capture by the Israelis.

While the exact details of the battle of Beit Hanoun are likely to remain foggy, it was clear that the incident will fuel Palestinian hatred of the Israeli armed forces.

The shootings happened on the third day of a major Israeli military operation codenamed Autumn Rains that was designed to neutralise Palestinian militants who fire Qassam rockets from the Beit Hanoun area into Israel.

Israeli special forces first entered the town in the early hours of Wednesday.

The only locals out and about at that hour were armed militants and at least six Palestinian gunmen and one Israeli soldier, a dog handler, died in that first skirmish.

By late Thursday the Israeli army believed dozens of armed gunmen were in the 700-year-old Nasser mosque in the town centre. Tanks surrounded the building and loudspeakers broadcast messages for the gunmen to surrender.

With the siege continuing overnight, local Palestinian radio called on women, both inside Beit Hanoun and outside, to march on the town centre to help the gunmen. This was code for acting as human shields to allow them to escape.

Around dawn yesterday several groups of women responded to the call. A group, including Mrs Hamed, ventured on to the streets only to be hit almost immediately by gunfire. Mrs Hamed was evacuated on a donkey cart.

Her sister-in-law Taghrid Hamad, 20, was hit in the leg and almost died from loss of blood. She was in intensive care last night in Shifa Hospital, the largest in Gaza. A much larger group of around 500 women, all veiled and unarmed, gathered from other towns in Gaza and tried to approach Beit Hanoun.

They are understood to have come under fire and two of them are believed to have been killed.

A local cameraman filming events was hit in the chest by a bullet and taken to hospital where his condition was described as critical.

The Israeli army said that as many as 3,000 women reached the mosque in a number of groups, allowing the gunmen to escape. By the time Israeli troops entered the building it was empty.

The Israeli army said that eight gunmen were spotted among the women and only after they opened fire was the order given for the troops to reply. "We did not use general fire, but sniper fire against eight identified targets," an Israeli spokesman said.

Dr Said Jodeh, the deputy director of Kamal Adwan hospital, said that in total 25 people, including three women and four children under the age of 16, had been killed in the Beit Hanoun operation. Almost all of the remaining 18 were believed to be gunmen.

The mayor of Beit Hanoun, Muhammad Kararneh, said his town had been turned into a "disaster zone". The tiny hospital was reported to be running out of essentials, although Israel said it would allow its resupply as a humanitarian gesture.

With no immediate end to the Israeli occupation of Beit Hanoun in sight, Palestinian politicians were already describing the shooting at the women's march as a "war crime" and a "massacre".

Margaret Beckett, the Foreign Secretary, called on Israel to show restraint.